Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach; Tite Kubo does. I do, however, own this story.

Torn

Chapter 9: Unchained

The next morning, at the same time that Soi Fon's squad was about to depart for the Human World, Ichigo Kurosaki opened his eyes and greeted yet another 'day' in the blasted desert world of Hueco Mundo. At least here in Las Noches there was some sunlight, but even that felt kind of fake once you knew of the illusion behind it.

The Soul Reaper's shoulder flared with pain as he tried to move it, the memory of the previous night's training slamming back into him like a brick wall. Ichimaru had pushed Ichigo's shikai to its absolute limit, and he'd only had to release Shinso's shikai once. Kurosaki shuddered reflexively as he thought about how powerful Gin would be if he had a reason to go all-out and unleash his bankai, before praying that that day never came.

Forcing himself up and out of bed, Ichigo got dressed in his uniform and shuffled lethargically down the hall towards the main room, where hopefully breakfast would be waiting.

"Morning, Ichigo," Neliel called out as she joined the orange-haired Soul Reaper on his trek, her eyes narrowing slightly in concern when she saw what kind of shape he was in. "You look like hell," the Espada said solicitously. "What happened?"

"Nnoitra was talking smack about you again," Ichigo lied with a smile, "so I had to kick his ass. He got in a couple of lucky shots, though."

As much as Kurosaki hated keeping secrets from Nel, he was smart enough to know that no one outside of him and Gin could know about their 'training sessions'. Besides, it wasn't a complete fabrication: Ichigo really did want to beat the shit out of Nnoitra for all of the trash he spouted about Neliel and Halibel, but he hadn't gotten the chance yet.

The brown-eyed Soul Reaper wondered why Halibel put up with Jiruga's crap considering that she was three ranks ahead of him and one ahead of Neliel, but right as he was beginning to ponder that question, Ichigo found himself at the doors to the main room. Opening them and stepping through, he picked up a bowl of food and ate it, standing next to Tosen as he did so.

"What happened to you, Ichigo?" the blind Soul Reaper asked, and Kurosaki just shrugged.

"I fell down some stairs," he answered plainly, and Ichimaru's grin became just a little wider.

"So this is Karakura Town, huh?" Kaien said as the five-person squad stepped through the senkaimon and into the Human World. "I could stand being here for a while, sure. Has a nice feel to it, ya know?"

Soi Fon snorted dismissively.

"No, I don't," she shot back. "In any case, we don't have time for sight-seeing. Kuchiki, do you know anywhere we could stay for the duration of the mission?"

Rukia's eyebrows narrowed together in thought for a few moments before she spoke.

"Well, one of us could always stay with Urahara; I'm sure he'd love the company. Orihime might also have some room to spare for two, and I'm sure Sado would be willing to take in one of us…"

"That's four taken care of," Soi Fon broke in, her voice impatient. "What about the fifth?"

Rukia's eyes clouded over as a flash of a familiar, oddly comfortable closet passed through her mind's eye, but it vanished as she blinked.

"You guys take those four spots," she said calmly, but with an edge in her voice that said not to argue. "I'll figure something out."

The Captain nodded her approval.

"Very well," she said crisply. "Let's get moving; we need to be settled down and ready to move as soon as possible."

Ikkaku vanished first, flash-stepping in the direction of Sado's house. Kaien said he would have no problems kicking back at Urahara's shop and left to go there, while Soi Fon and Renji hurried in the direction of Orihime's house, but not before Abarai had given his long-time friend a worried look. Rukia sighed and began to walk down the street, wondering where she was going to go, when a warm voice spoke up from behind her.

"What's a nice girl like you doing with a look like that on your face, Rukia?"

The violet-eyed Soul Reaper spun around, and her hand was about to move instinctively to where her zanpakuto would have been before she saw whom the speaker was and her eyes widened.

"Kurosaki-sama?"

Isshin greeted the young Kuchiki with a smile.

"You don't have to be so formal," he insisted. "Any person who's as close to Ichigo as you are might as well be a member of the family, as far as I'm concerned."

Rukia dropped her head slightly to hide a faint blush that had risen on her cheeks at the implication, but then Ichigo's situation came back to her mind and she sighed. The Soul Reaper's head dropped lower, this time out of dejection rather than modesty, until Isshin's hand rested gently on her shoulder and the strangely comforting aura he seemed to exude brought the young Kuchiki's eyes back up to meet his.

"He'll be all right, Rukia," the patriarch said, his tone uncommonly serious. "I know it. He cares about us too much to leave us behind for good; the least we can do is return the favor and have faith in him until he comes home."

Rukia was about to ask how exactly Ichigo's dad, who seemed like the craziest man imaginable, knew exactly what was going on with his son, but Isshin stopped the questions with a look.

"There'll be time for those later," he said. "For now, let's get you home; I'm sure Karin and Yuzu will be happy to see you again. At the very least," he added with a sly edge in his voice, "they should be more fun to hang out with than Byakuya."

The violet-eyed Soul Reaper nodded distractedly and followed the older man in silent gratitude, before the words she had just heard sunk in and almost stopped her dead in her tracks.

How in the hell did this man know her brother?

Ichigo stepped into a large, empty room in a far off part of Las Noches and closed the door behind him, sealing it. He wasn't going to give himself a chance to run away from this; it was all, or nothing.

It was time to challenge Hichigo for his bankai.

Something within the Soul Reaper nagged at him, saying that it was too soon, but Kurosaki brushed it off. He wasn't going to let Ichimaru pound him to a pulp again; if achieving bankai right here and now was what it was going to take, then that's what he would do. As far as Ichigo knew Aizen was far beyond Gin in power, and the orange-haired Soul Reaper couldn't even defeat Ichimaru at half-strength. Kurosaki needed more power if he was ever going to get out from under Aizen's thumb, and he needed it now.

"So, you're decided?" Hichigo's voice rang out, bouncing harshly off of the walls of the empty room as he stepped forward from the shadows. "I'll warn you one more time, brother," the pale warrior continued, drawing his own, inverted zanpakuto.

"If you lose, it's all over."

Ichigo just chuckled, strength smoldering behind his eyes.

"You talk too much, Hichigo," he parried, beginning to run towards his opponent as he unwrapped his blade. "Shut up and fight!"

The pale warrior blocked Kurosaki's first strike with his forearm, meeting the Soul Reaper's determined stare with a mocking one.

"Do you really think you can cut me with this empty blade, Ichigo?" he hissed. "Don't fuck with me!"

The Hollow brought up his blade with the intention of running Ichigo through like he had last time, but his prey dodged with a flash-step and reappeared a few paces away, unharmed.

"You've gotten faster, brother," Hichigo said after a moment. "I guess running away was the only thing your time with Ichimaru taught you how to do after all!"

The taunt accomplished its purpose as Ichigo charged forward blindly, driven by rage and self-loathing. The Hollow blocked each of his strikes so easily it almost seemed effortless, something that only increased Kurosaki's anger and made his attacks that much simpler to dodge.

"You just don't get it, do you?" Hichigo asked as his opponent's flurry of attacks continued. "You can't defeat me with an empty sword, Ichigo!"

The pale warrior snarled and carved a huge gash down Ichigo's chest with his inverted Zangetsu, jumping back a few steps to give the Soul Reaper space to fall to his knees. Hichigo felt his counterpart's reiatsu spike feebly and he sighed, exasperated.

"You can't call out my powers if I'm outside of your soul, brother," the Hollow spoke. "You forced me out in order to challenge me for complete supremacy, and now you're about to pay the price for the mistake of thinking you alone have enough strength to subjugate me!"

Hichigo raised his sword high, holding it aloft for a moment before bringing it down swiftly as Ichigo's unfocused eyes drifted shut.

"Open your eyes, Ichigo."

The orange-haired Soul Reaper heard the voice echo in his head and did as it commanded, opening his eyes slowly to find that he was in his Spirit World.

And he wasn't the only one there.

"Open your eyes, Ichigo," the echoing voice said again, "and gaze upon the face of he whom you have forsaken."

The battered warrior looked up to see a tall man balanced on a steel pole. He was wearing a long jacket and a thin pair of glasses, from behind which a pair of steely, cold eyes looked down upon Ichigo with scathing disappointment. Swallowing the intense wave of shame that rose up within him, the Soul Reaper spoke out in a strained voice.

"Zangetsu?"

The spirit scoffed.

"You still presume to call me by my name, Ichigo?" he asked. "After you turned away from me, after you cast me aside and leaned upon your Hollow, you still think you have the right to say my name?!"

Kurosaki had never heard Zangetsu raise his voice before, and was stunned almost to the point of silence. His point made, the old man lowered his voice and continued.

"Your Hollow was right, Ichigo," he said. "Your blade, as it stands now, is empty. The zanpakuto is a reflection of your soul, and without his power to draw upon you are nothing; a shell, weaker than an unarmed child."

"But my soul isn't empty," the orange-haired Soul Reaper defended. "You're here, aren't you?!"

"As far as you were concerned, Ichigo," Zangetsu answered evenly, "I didn't exist until just a few moments ago, when I showed you my face once again. Once all of your Hollow's power had been stripped away, only in a moment of total desperation as you stood on the brink of death, could you hear my voice. I will always be with you, Ichigo," the spirit continued, his voice gradually gaining strength.

"As you breath, so will I. As you fight to protect those you care about, so I will fight with equal might to protect you. But you must promise me that you will place the same faith in me that I have in you, Ichigo. Without that bond, I am nothing. Without that bond, we are nothing. So tell me, Ichigo," Zangetsu finished, holding out his hand, "will you trust me to fight with you once more? Will you trust me to help you defeat this Hollow once and for all?"

Ichigo's eyes widened in surprise at the offer, before they narrowed again in determination as a confident smile appeared on his face once more.

"Zangetsu," he said, reaching out and taking the spirit's hand as the world around them faded away, "I thought you'd never ask."

Hichigo was already savoring his victory as his sword raced down though the air when the bent-over Soul Reaper's reiatsu spiked massively, forcing the surprised Hollow to back off. Ichigo rose to his feet a few heartbeats later, casually wiping the dirt off of his shoulder as a ring of dust formed around him in response to his renewed spiritual energy. Eyes glowing blue, the Soul Reaper grinned with bloodlust and power as his wound finished closing itself up before Hichigo's shocked eyes.

"Sorry about that," Ichigo said sarcastically, and the pale warrior raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"Sorry?" he echoed. "For what?"

The orange-haired Soul Reaper vanished completely, and even Hichigo had no idea where he was until the sharp blade of Zangetsu was pressed against his back.

"For getting your hopes up, brother," Ichigo finished. "Getsuga Tensho!"

There was a blinding explosion of power as the attack was released at point-blank range, and when the smoke cleared the Hollow was standing a few paces away from the Soul Reaper, breathing hard and bleeding profusely from a gash that had all but cut him in half.

"How…?" Hichigo breathed out, his voice strained and growing fainter as blood filled his lungs. "How did you…" his voice became more pained as something approaching emotional hurt seeped into it, "how could you… brother?"

"Don't worry," Ichigo said calmly, walking over to his counterpart and putting his hand over the wound he had created, "I'm not going to let you die."

The Hollow could only stare at his one-time foe in mute incomprehension as Kurosaki healed his wound by using raw reiatsu to stitch it shut. After a few tense moments, Hichigo felt as good as new on the outside. On the inside, however, he knew that he had been defeated.

"It's time, Hichigo," he heard the brown-eyed Soul Reaper say. "Give me your bankai."

"No."

Ichigo gave his Hollow a flabbergasted look.

"What?"

"I said, no," Hichigo repeated, stronger this time. "I refuse to live in a world where I'm not the strongest, Ichigo. You've defeated me, I'll admit it; now do the honorable thing and kill me already!"

Kurosaki was stumped for a few moments, having not expected this to happen at all. He had defeated Hichigo fair and square, and so now the Hollow's power belonged to him: it was as simple as that. But the pale warrior's refusal presented a problem; he wouldn't lend Ichigo his full strength in battle if he was forced to cooperate, but Ichigo also knew that without the powers of both Zangetsu and his Hollow, he wouldn't be able to stand a chance against Aizen. He stood in thought for a few more heartbeats, before an idea so crazy it just might work popped into his head.

"I'll make you a deal, brother," the Soul Reaper said to the Hollow. "If you promise to submit to me and grant me the power of your bankai, I'll materialize your spirit permanently and let you stay in that separate form for good."

The idea struck Hichigo as a solid one, but he was too smart to be roped in to any agreement without asking about the inevitable catch.

"So what else do you want in exchange, besides the power of my bankai?"

"Nothing other than your loyalty, brother," Ichigo answered. "I'm going to need every sword I can gather to help me against Aizen, Hichigo," the Soul Reaper finished, "and you have one of the strongest swords I know."

The pale warrior considered the offer for a moment and nodded.

"Deal."

Ichigo smiled as his Hollow faded away and reappeared back in his soul. A heartbeat later Kurosaki almost fell over as a surge of power shot through him so suddenly he thought it was going to tear him apart, fading right before he fell to his knees from the pressure.

"I'm finished in here," Hichigo's voice called out from inside his head. "Now hurry up and do your part of the bargain; I don't know how much longer I can take the Old Man's grin before I rip his face off."

The Soul Reaper laughed as he raised his sword perpendicular to his body and concentrated, the blade of Zangetsu pulsing brightly with energy and kicking up a dust cloud a few feet away. As the light and the dust faded a flesh-and-blood Hichigo was revealed, standing there with a black-cloth-wrapped Zangetsu on his back. There was a satisfied look in his yellow eyes as he clenched and unclenched his hand, and a smile on his face that was so wide it made Kenpachi's war-grin look like a smirk.

"This is what I'm talking about," he said happily, before looking over at Ichigo. "Well, brother?" he asked. "Aren't you going to try it out?"

The Soul Reaper nodded slightly, set his feet and held Zangetsu straight out in front of him.

"Bankai!"

There was a surge of power that forced Hichigo to close his eyes against the flying chunks of debris, and when he looked again, the form that was the pinnacle of Ichigo's power stood before him.

Ichigo's face had not changed beyond his eyes turning yellow and black; the white face-stripes of his shikai were gone. His jacket was the same as it had been with his original bankai, but the white and black were reversed. His katana, too, was white now, but with black hilt-wrappings and a black chain extending from the end of the hilt. It was a true merger of both of his halves, the powers of Zangetsu and Hichigo harnessed into a single, terrifyingly powerful form.

But as Kurosaki's muscles began to strain a few moments later, he realized with painful clarity that while he had achieved bankai once more, he had a long way to go before he could handle it effectively, let alone master it.

So he would train with Ichimaru again tonight after all, but this time the fight would be both much more even and much more fun. Releasing his bankai form and sighing, Ichigo finally allowed himself to relax as he and his now-incarnated Hollow left the torn-up room behind. The Soul Reaper had gained bankai, but the real battle was just beginning.

Grimmjow Jaegerjaques was feeling more and more like a caged animal as each minute of idle time passed him by. The Espada wanted nothing more than to have a good brawl and blow off some steam, but Ichigo was off somewhere doing god-knew-what and Ulquiorra, the only other person he had any interest in fighting, claimed that Aizen had some important assignment for him to accomplish. Grimmjow knew that the real reason Schiffer didn't want to fight was because he was afraid he'd get his ass kicked by the Sixth Espada, but he wasn't in the mood to argue with Ulquiorra right now.

Which left Jaegerjaques pacing around his room and saddled with a ton of pent-up aggression, wondering what to do. Just when he was about to snap and blow a chunk of the wall away with a cero blast, the voice of Shawlong Qufang, one of his fraccion, filled the room.

"Something on your mind, Jaegerjaques-sama?"

Grimmjow turned around and spat out a reply with a snarl.

"No," he said, "there's nothing on my mind, and that's the problem. I'd spar with Ichigo, but I have no idea where he is."

"The word going around is that Ichigo Kurosaki has spent the day so far training in secret, sir. No one knows exactly what he is doing, but there have been massive emanations of reiatsu felt from the part of Las Noches he was last seen entering."

Grimmjow's blue eyes narrowed at the report.

"So, he's been training to get stronger, huh?" the Espada half-hissed. "That sneaky little bastard, I bet he's trying to pull ahead of me. Well, to hell with that! If he's going to spend all day training, I'm gonna match him by spending all night fighting! Get the rest of the crew together, Shawlong," Jaegerjaques said, his eyes smoldering with killing intent.

"We're gonna hunt us some Soul Reapers in the Human World."

Kaien Shiba was finishing up a cup of sake in the front room of Urahara's shop when he felt the reiatsu in the air around him spike drastically. The surprise on his face turned into cold, ruthless determination when he recognized the type of reiatsu that had so suddenly appeared:

It was a pack of Arrancar. From having spent so much time trapped within Aaroniero, Kaien knew what they were and what they could do better than any other Soul Reaper not currently in Hueco Mundo. Picking up his communicator, the Lieutenant told the other four members of his team to be on high alert, especially for any Arrancar with a number higher than eleven. When he was satisfied that everyone was prepared for the impending melee, Kaien walked outside and looked up at his opponent.

He was a tall, thin Arrancar with long, straight blonde hair and a casual attitude that told Kaien he was going to be easy to catch off-guard.

"Hey, bro," the Arrancar called down in a tone that made Shiba want to smack him across the face. "You want to be my first kill of the night?"

Feeling the reiatsu of his comrades surge up at four other points across town, the Lieutenant figured there was no point in holding back and he soared upwards the short distance to meet his opponent head-on, drawing Nejibana and clashing with the Arrancar.

Soi Fon received Kaien's warning and was immediately out on the roof of the house in her Soul Reaper form, every muscle in her body tense and ready to spring. It was that stance, honed by countless hours of SMC training, that saved her from being run through when a sword appeared in front of her from out of nowhere. Neatly blocking the strike with her own sealed zanpakuto and jumping backwards, Soi Fon stilled the slight trembling in her limbs and looked up to take stock of her attacker.

He was tall, about a head taller than her, with telltale blue hair and eyes to match it. Those vivid eyes glowed with an almost feral gleam, reined in by an even sharper intelligence. He would have passed for a Soul Reaper but for the hole in his abdomen and mask fragment on his jaw, the two things that signified him as an Arrancar. He chuckled, eyeing up his opponent with the same thoroughness she had given him.

"That was a nice block, Soul Reaper," he said, his voice seething with a cockiness Soi Fon immediately found infuriating. "Still, it was a bit slower than what I would expect from a Captain."

The dark-eyed Soul Reaper didn't say anything for a heartbeat before vanishing and reappearing at his side with her shikai unsealed and pointed at his throat.

"Fast enough for you, Arrancar?" she hissed as she jabbed the point into his neck, only to have it fail to penetrate the skin.

"What the hell…?" Soi Fon gasped, and Grimmjow barked out a laugh before punching her hard in the midsection, sending the Captain tumbling.

"You'll have to actually be able to pierce my hierro if you want that little sting of yours to do any damage, Soul Reaper," he spoke mockingly. Just as he hoped would happen, Soi Fon charged him, the point of Suzumebachi descending rapidly but predictably as she struck.

Grimmjow's plan was to parry the blow with his zanpakuto, use the Soul Reaper's momentum against her and throw her off balance, but when the Espada parried the attack the rest of his plan fell to pieces. As the two zanpakuto collided, Pantera resonated in a way Grimmjow had never felt before and the world melted away as the waves of energy rippling off of his zanpakuto engulfed him.

Within his mind's eye, Jaegerjaques found himself assaulted by a barrage of images:

An alley, infested with rats.

An old, broken-down building with a single swing in the front yard.

A thug shoving him up against a wall and almost breaking his jaw with a right hook.

The bitter taste of blood in his mouth, and the dull clinking sound of a loose tooth swirling down a drain.

A girl, scared and alone, looking up at him with round, coal-dark eyes and asking him for his name.

His name…

Soi Fon was going through a similar experience as Suzumebachi pulsed with energy and shook around her hand, visceral images clawing their way into her head:

A gravestone, cold and gray in the dawn.

A drunken, fat man almost blinding her in one eye with a vicious punch.

An old, broken down building with a single swing in the front yard, her new home.

A boy, bruised but proud, with blue eyes gleaming against the darkness.

She asks him his name.

His name…

The visions ended just as jarringly as they had come, dropping the Soul Reaper unceremoniously back into the Human World as her brain scrambled frantically to recover. Looking into the glazed eyes of her opponent, Soi Fon could tell that he had just had the same thing happen to him.

"What…" the Espada gasped as he tried to catch his breath, "the hell… was that?"

"I don't know," Soi Fon heard herself reply, but it felt like she was still outside of her own body. Those images had been so vivid; why had she seen them? What could they mean?

As their comrades clashed around them the Espada and the Captain stood motionless, their blades still deadlocked, waiting for an answer that would not come.

A/N: For anyone who's wondering what's going on at the end there between Soi Fon and Grimmjow, it's a concept I borrowed from the second Bleach movie, The Diamond Dust Rebellion, called 'Zanpakuto Resonance'. If you don't know what that entails, basically sometimes Zanpakuto supposedly 'tremble' when they clash, and reveal their wielder's pasts. That's where the trippy flashbacks came from. I hope that clears up some possible confusion, but if not, it's going to be explained to the characters themselves later on, as will the significance of the flashbacks.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and as always, please review!